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So I watched Smash Labs and feel that it is nothing but a third-rate Mythbusters where instead of investigating established myths, they go, "Hey I wonder if we could ____ an ______ with _______." If the "scientific testing" on Mythbusters ever made you cringe, then do not watch this show. Perhaps it will get better later, but I don't know. The whole cast seems comprised of MB Build Team wannabes, with nobody there who really seems to know anything about anything.
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Dec 29, 2007 03:40
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Oh god if this preview week is anything what the next year has in store for Discovery, it's going to be a long horrible one. You guys all hit the nail on the head with your opinions of Smashlabs, it's just a crappy Mythbusters wannabe with idiots who don't know anything and feels like a giant advertisement. Bone Detectives looks boring, the weapon show seems just like Futureweapons, that Fighting show seems like that other crappy show they have now with the tribes around the world. The only good shows I feel are on the Science Channel or History Channel and they reserve the Discovery Channel for their expected high grossing fodder to feed the masses. I miss classic Discovery Channel where the only long running programs was Wild Discovery and every night you would have 1 hour specials on something or another. This good programming seems to have been diluted over the entire Discovery Network nowadays. I also remember when The Learning Channel wasn't some god awful home improvement/makeover/shitfest on par with Discovery.
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Jan 1, 2008 04:23
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Any one else catch weapon masters? I thought it would be interesting to see if it would be possible to improve on certain things. The Samurai sword was a neat if not online wankish type of thing. My only real problem is they really didn’t go into detail if it could actually be made better with more time using as much modern technology as they could.
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Jan 1, 2008 05:02
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Is it just me or does the host of Weapon Masters look like one of those cavemen from the Geico commercials? He's loving ugly and has the most godawful beard I've ever seen.
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Jan 1, 2008 07:06
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It seems like all of these new shows are trying way too hard. I like to compare them to "Dirty Jobs". The new shows are all like: "YEAH. This is awesome! Watch me do this thing I can do. PIMPz 4 LYFE!!" Then Mike Rowe is just "Hi. I'm Mike Rowe. I'm going to do a dirty job, make jokes, and be manly. You guys should watch me as I do these things."
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Jan 1, 2008 12:06
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The Human Crouton posted:It seems like all of these new shows are trying way too hard. I like to compare them to "Dirty Jobs". The new shows are all like: "YEAH. This is awesome! Watch me do this thing I can do. PIMPz 4 LYFE!!" Then Mike Rowe is just "Hi. I'm Mike Rowe. I'm going to do a dirty job, make jokes, and be manly. You guys should watch me as I do these things." I don't think they understand why people love their shows so much. Lately it seems like they come up with some neat premise (or copy something that worked), and then get some host(s) that half-rear end it or fake enthusiasm, not realizing that people watch their shows because the hosts (and in Dirty Jobs' case, the guests) are likable, charismatic, and really into what they're doing. Honestly, the premises behind Dirty Jobs and Mythbusters don't sound that entertaining by themselves, but the hosts turn them into something immensely enjoyable. I guess they are probably used to the content of the shows being the main selling point, seeing as most of their programming was documentary type shows in the past.
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Jan 1, 2008 14:10
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I think you're right on target as far as the bulk of the draw for the shows. All my favorites have fantastic hosts and you'd have to wonder if simply finding talent and building shows around them might be a better choice than finding a schmoe to fit in "It's like preexisting show ___ but with ___". At the very least, Discovery should be thanking their lucky stars they landed Rowe, Adam and Jamie, Bear, Les, and (now that I think about it) Ben Bailey because I think they let their shows really get a draw and smooth out any rough patches early on as they got their footing.
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Jan 1, 2008 18:06
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Electric Hobo posted:Is it just me or does the host of Weapon Masters look like one of those cavemen from the Geico commercials? The show also feels like a lame, dumbed-down knockoff of FutureWeapons. I wasn't a fan of that show either, but if I'm not a fan of steak, I'd still prefer filet mignon to a pan-fried cow rear end. I'm not terribly excited for Sneak Peek Week. Pretty much everything they're debuting feels like a copy of their already popular shows with anything that makes those shows popular or interesting removed. Oh, an I'm late, but it needs to be said: Hazard Pay was pretty much the worst show on Discovery ever.
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Jan 2, 2008 01:15
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The thing I don't like about these martial arts type shows like Human Weapon and whatever this new one is is that they try to make it seem more exotic by actually traveling to the homeland of the art and then finding someone who claims to be a master, and then having some bullshit where the hosts actually have to train and fight. But I don't give a poo poo about the host's plight. I just want to see the art in action. Why don't they just give me a show where I can watch some guys show some techniques, the reason those techniques work, and maybe talk about the history and tournament scene of their art. Being in Japan while this happens and watching some douchebag train is irrelevant to me.
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Jan 2, 2008 03:05
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It just sucks that we have to wait until April for "Deadliest Catch". I have a DVR full of "Survivorman" and "Man vs. Wild" to tide me over until then. The new season of "Everest" wasn't very long, and I'm almost done with it. Too bad they aren't replaying the first season. It's obviously off topic, but since someone brought up the Science Channel and the History Channel, I may as well ask: any recommendations for shows on those channels? I also get the National Geographic Channel, too. If there's anything along the lines of the shows that are popular on Discovery, I'd be interested to hear what people suggest.
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Jan 2, 2008 03:07
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The Human Crouton posted:The thing I don't like about these martial arts type shows like Human Weapon and whatever this new one is is that they try to make it seem more exotic by actually traveling to the homeland of the art and then finding someone who claims to be a master, and then having some bullshit where the hosts actually have to train and fight. The biggest problem with the fight show is similar to the problem Last One Standing had, but made ten times worse. They have 5 days to learn the thing they are learning. 5 days is not enough time to competently learn a goddamn sport. Let alone a foreign one. They spend half their time doing worthless training that is ultimately meaningless because 5 days is not enough to train whatever muscles it is you need to do whatever it is you need to do. The first episode Fight Quest was a mess because of this. Last One Standing scooted by because they were always in some remote place learning some weird sport most of us had probably never heard of. And most of the time it was something basic like "run with this poo poo on your back. Hit him with this sick, try to knock him down, or row this canoe faster than the other guy." Not "hay guys time to learn kung fuErrmm, Chinese Kickboxing in less than a week. You will have to fight someone in an exhibition, have fun!  " Then the two stars of the show, who are already fighters in mixed martial arts, learn very little, admit as much, and let the audience promptly know that they will just go ahead and do whatever comes natural to them in the ring. Thanks for wasting my time I guess?
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Jan 2, 2008 06:04
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About Jamie, while he's still a very serious and driven person he seems to have really gotten comfortable with the cameras and with working with Adam, and seems a lot looser overall. Sure they have him make the lame scripted jokes in the host segments and such, but during the builds and testing he's much more relaxed, smiling and laughing easily. Some of that is probably due to their plans working most of the time now.
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Jan 2, 2008 06:56
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Butthole Prince posted:It just sucks that we have to wait until April for "Deadliest Catch". The Universe on History is really good. On History International they show The Worst Jobs in History with Tony Robsinson, I really like that series a whole lot. Science is showing Cosmos again as well.
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Jan 2, 2008 19:17
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http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html?paid=1.14710.24940.4134.3 It Takes a Thief seems to have risen from the grave. No idea what this means for new episodes or the show's future, but it seems to be back on the daily schedule.
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Jan 4, 2008 23:48
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Butthole Prince posted:It's obviously off topic, but since someone brought up the Science Channel and the History Channel, I may as well ask: any recommendations for shows on those channels?
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Jan 5, 2008 00:08
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Discovery sucks. I am not trying to flame it but come on, I grew up watching wings. which is now on the Wings channel. Infact alot of the classic discovery shows are on their own channels. which in turn dont seem very educational and entertaining. I watch weapon masters with my friend the other night and it was awful. They padded it. How many shows do you see them doing this? there is a voice over explaining something, then the host/s (who most likely did the voice over) looks at you and explains it again. Then they do it again. Its like when you were in school and had to stretch a report to 2500 words and just kept thinking of new ways to repeat your self. As for the rest of weapon masters, cooky crazy artist guy who lives in a junk heap by train tracks, really comes off as a meath head. Why did he have to go to japan? to learn about samurai swords? we spent over half the show with those two loving around in japan. He says he is gonna make it better thought he did the same stuff the sword smiths in japan did. I guess he didnt have the imagination to come up with something better, gently caress I bet the myth busters could. How about these the english chap goes to japan and explains what the sword is, we cut out crazy/artist inventor guy going to japan and having trouble using a train station. he stays in his shop and makes a better sword. Oh and shooting the sword with a bullet? yeah its cool, but better why dont we have the martail artist dude cut the bullet with his sword. ahh it was awful Oh and I cant believe history channels the universe seires, they kept talking about worm holes/black holes. Then they kept talking about time travel while showing footage of "Nazis" What are you getting at history channel what are you trying to say? you wanna be the hitler channel? Also thought mondern marvels was running out of ideas when they did "water" soon they will have to do one on sex toys
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Jan 5, 2008 03:45
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max4me posted:Also thought mondern marvels was running out of ideas when they did "water" soon they will have to do one on sex toys I'd totally watch a sex toys Modern Marvels.
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Jan 5, 2008 04:50
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max4me posted:Also thought mondern marvels was running out of ideas when they did "water" soon they will have to do one on sex toys 1 hour wasn't enough
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Jan 5, 2008 04:55
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max4me posted:Discovery sucks.  New Discovery sucks. Planet Earth, Dirty Jobs, How It's Made, Mythbusters (though some people hate them for the "explosions  " factor and there's no accounting for taste), Survivorman, etc. are all quality compared to the poo poo they jettisoned like American Chopper and Hazard Pay and all this new poo poo they're debuting like Smash Lab.Spike TV just debuted some show called Manswers that's, as best I can tell, basically Mythbusters with all the science removed and lots of references to boobs and beer because all guys will watch anything with boobs and beer on it, right? It would honestly fit in nearly seamlessly with the new line of Discovery programming.
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Jan 5, 2008 05:16
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remember the two documentaries they did on jessie james? it was fun to watch him fabricate those choppers even had shaq getting his made. That was really entertaining but taken to a seires level just doesnt work you can record someones job for a couple of months and make something neat cause your compressing the highlights from a few months to an hour or two but to stretch it out just makes it boring. Same for the other poo poo like "major city" ink, Its a hosed up version of reality tv. I learn nothing. take all the channels like history/animal/tlc look at their good shows and just show them on one channel and you will have what made discovery good. okay I guess modern marvels should just due an hour on cobol programing
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Jan 5, 2008 05:30
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max4me posted:take all the channels like history/animal/tlc look at their good shows and just show them on one channel and you will have what made discovery good. I agree with this in principle as Discovery's biggest problem is how thin their programming is. They just don't have enough shows to fill an 18-hour-a-day (or whatever it is) schedule and while their new shows suck, some of their current ones aren't so great either (Cash Cab, though I like Ben Bailey, is a quiz show that would embarrass a 4th grader were they to get any of the questions wrong). And I used to bitch about all the Deadliest Catch marathons since it was just a 3 season or so long show, but there's been like 10 Dirty Jobs marathons in a month and a half.
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Jan 5, 2008 05:58
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I'd also like to throw this into the bitch fest: Every weekday around 1:00(I forget when exactly) they have ghost and UFO bullshit on. I'm watching discovery channel to learn stuff. Stop showing me ghost re-enactments.
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Jan 5, 2008 07:35
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The Human Crouton posted:I'd also like to throw this into the bitch fest: Every weekday around 1:00(I forget when exactly) they have ghost and UFO bullshit on. I'm watching discovery channel to learn stuff. Stop showing me ghost re-enactments. I'll agree with that. All the goddamned UFO shows on History and Discovery are horrid. As is Ghost Hunters and any of those Bigfoot/etc shows where they spend an hour zooming in on that grainy bigfoot movie and the nessie photo dramatically. This goes double for anything involving bible codes and poo poo. I'm also more than a little tired of the natural disasters shows they've been running way too much lately. It's not like they don't have good ideas, Cities of the Underworld was great, and I wish they'd revive Conquest. Free Market Gravy posted:http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-schedules/series.html?paid=1.14710.24940.4134.3 That show wasn't too bad, but it should only be about half an hour long. The best part is the dude breaking in and wrecking people's poo poo anyway, and for some reason they only give it like 15 minutes. IRQ fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Jan 5, 2008 |
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Jan 5, 2008 07:47
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IRQ posted:I'll agree with that. All the goddamned UFO shows on History and Discovery are horrid. As is Ghost Hunters and any of those Bigfoot/etc shows where they spend an hour zooming in on that grainy bigfoot movie and the nessie photo dramatically. This goes double for anything involving bible codes and poo poo. I haven't watched the History Channel since Christmas. Just because for two days they showed only UFO crap. The other day I turned to it to see what was on, more UFO crap. Edit: And the guy breaking into houses was the best part. Especially when it involved him breaking into places with people in it. Oh and when he had to run on the fence. Loving Leader fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Jan 5, 2008 |
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Jan 5, 2008 07:49
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Loving Leader posted:I haven't watched the History Channel since Christmas. Just because for two days they showed only UFO crap. The other day I turned to it to see what was on, more UFO crap. Honestly, that was an improvement over their usual Jesus show boringathon. Not that I watched it. UFO shows are just universally cringeworthy.
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Jan 5, 2008 07:52
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IRQ posted:Honestly, that was an improvement over their usual Jesus show boringathon. I was hoping for "History of the Fruit cake." Instead I watched five hours of COLD WAR: RUSSIA VS USA VS UFOS.
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Jan 5, 2008 07:54
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Loving Leader posted:I was hoping for "History of the Fruit cake." Instead I watched five hours of COLD WAR: RUSSIA VS USA VS UFOS. That was on the Food Network. (not kidding)
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Jan 5, 2008 08:01
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IRQ posted:That was on the Food Network. (not kidding) Yeah I found out after five hours and got to enjoy Alton Brown make Fruit Cake.
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Jan 5, 2008 08:03
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Whatever happened to those shows where teams would have to design and construct machines to complete a specific task with the crap lying around in a junk yard? That was fun. 
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Jan 5, 2008 09:58
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IRQ posted:That show wasn't too bad, but it should only be about half an hour long. The best part is the dude breaking in and wrecking people's poo poo anyway, and for some reason they only give it like 15 minutes. I'll revive my gripe about it: I posted:What annoyed me about the show is that the robbers left a fuckload of evidence behind and left their fingerprints on everything. I know that wasn't the point of the show, but when he was pulling Splinter Cell-style poo poo while people were in the house, it annoyed me to see him being so reckless in terms of not being traced. And I agree. The giving back of people's belongings and re-break-in are completely unnecessary as I know Discovery didn't really rob these people for good and I really don't care if those people are using the poo poo Discovery bought for them correctly or not. They could edit the segment detailing what security measures they put in the house down to a short graphical representation with a voice-over. You can't completely get rid of it because then the show loses all of the educational purpose, but it doesn't need to be the last 30 minutes of the show.
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Jan 5, 2008 16:57
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I'm not sure on this, but I don't think cops are going to blow the time and effort it takes to dust an entire house for prints and then run them through a bunch of databases just to find a burgler.
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Jan 5, 2008 18:17
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The thing that always got me about To catch a Thief was, the way this guy goes through poo poo, he has to break a lot of poo poo. Not to mention if the family has any pets or anything. How ever I would love to see it based in Texas, with a neighbor never listens to what’s going on and ends up bursting into the house with his “huntin rifle”
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Jan 5, 2008 18:22
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I know it is not a DC show, but Monster Quest, while interesting, certainly doesn't seem to be the type of thing I would expect to see in its time slot. It seems like a continuation of Histories Mysteries, which was a cool series, but not the type of show I'd expect to see so much advertising for. Is this "Battle 360" show what I think it is? (Dogfights only focusing on multiple aspects of a battle instead of just planes.) Also, what happened to "Shootout!"?
ToastyPotato fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jan 5, 2008 |
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Jan 5, 2008 19:30
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I think DC's problem is that they have too many channels that spread content way too thin. Look here: List of channels We've got: Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, Discovery Health, Military, Discovery Times, Science Channel, Fittv, Discovery Kids, Planet Green, Turbo, and Discovery Home. That's 12 channels in which they have to fill 24-hours of programming, for which they don't have 24 hours of programming. Take Discovery Times which Discovery says: quote:Offering rare depth and insight about the most pressing issues facing the world today. I think the issue is that discovery proliferates channels that quickly run out of new and original stuff so they stagnate. "Hey people like health shows, lets have 24 hours of it, on 2 different channels, one focused on fitness and one on overall health." Six Months later: "Let's have health and fitness-related reality show marathons, on both channel!" Or take the Science channel, for which there isn't enough interesting science stuff to fill a network 24/7 so we get stuff like How its made and Build it Bigger. While these shows are interesting, are they really science channel material? In fact, they really aren't, since How Its Made is also shown on the original discovery channel, for which today, 1/5/08, they have an all day marathon. I therefore think Discovery should consolidate channels. Animal Planet, Travel Channel and Planet Green should be one "Planet Earth" channel. TLC and Discovery Home should be one "Home and DIY" channel. Fittv and Discovery Health should be one "Health" channel. Ect. This way, we have 5 or 6 interesting channels instead of 12+ boring channels with incestuous content and endless marathons because they can't fill all the time.
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Jan 5, 2008 20:09
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ToastyPotato posted:I know it is not a DC show, but Monster Quest, while interesting, certainly doesn't seem to be the type of thing I would expect to see in its time slot. It seems like a continuation of Histories Mysteries, which was a cool series, but not the type of show I'd expect to see so much advertising for. I'm watching an episode of it now devoted to Stalin's plans for an ape-man army made of human/orangutan hybrids, complete with hilarious CG animated footage of marching uniformed apes. It ends with the narrator saying there's no truth to the claim that Stalin wanted to make an ape-man army, so they wasted a whole episode of their show discussing something that they know is a total fabrication. I hate when educational channels waste their resources on supernatural nonsense, but this is literally a show about nothing. Maybe next they'll do a show about John Titor. I liked History's Mysteries because I learned something about history, but this show is an even bigger embarassment than those Bible code specials.
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Jan 5, 2008 20:22
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Jack Gladney posted:I'm watching an episode of it now devoted to Stalin's plans for an ape-man army made of human/orangutan hybrids, complete with hilarious CG animated footage of marching uniformed apes. It ends with the narrator saying there's no truth to the claim that Stalin wanted to make an ape-man army, so they wasted a whole episode of their show discussing something that they know is a total fabrication. I hate when educational channels waste their resources on supernatural nonsense, but this is literally a show about nothing. Maybe next they'll do a show about John Titor. Ah yeah, that was my favorite part about the show. They basically waited until the very end to say, "well it turns out that everything we discussed in the past hour was pointless because the scientist was only just trying to prove evolution and discredit the church and neither he nor Stalin ever wanted to make an ape man army. Oh and the DNA test on the supposed hybrid man we've dragged rear end on didn't work out either and we aren't going to try again! "
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Jan 5, 2008 20:44
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IRQ posted:I'm not sure on this, but I don't think cops are going to blow the time and effort it takes to dust an entire house for prints and then run them through a bunch of databases just to find a burgler. If all he steals is some DVDs or whatever, then yeah, I agree, but often he was stealing lots of jewelery, sometimes a car/motorcycle, etc. I think that makes it a felony or grand larceny as opposed to just theft or robbery.
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Jan 5, 2008 21:13
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max4me posted:
As far as the modern marvels thing that, you might be surprised about some of the episodes covering things like water. Some of the more interesting episodes I saw were about things that sounded really boring and benign.
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Jan 5, 2008 21:16
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that "fight quest" show is really stupid and the two hosts are really really annoying. it was funny watching the non-bald one get really mad and try to wrestle some dude instead of fighting with sticks and knives though
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Jan 5, 2008 21:33
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The Dark One posted:Whatever happened to those shows where teams would have to design and construct machines to complete a specific task with the crap lying around in a junk yard? That was fun. The show was called Junkyard Wars. It was pretty good with the original hosts, but the newer hosts seemed to take some of the fun of the show away. I've seen the episodes occasionally re-run on Discovery.
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